The Archers: don't let it turn into Eastenders

It's the small storylines that keep us hooked on The Archers, says Ben
Lawrence
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Phil Archer would never have stood for this. The quintessential Englishman — lover of pigs, astronomy and Sir Edward Elgar — represented all that was great about Radio 4’s everyday tale of rural folk.

Phil’s 60 years in the soap were filled with incident, but no sensationalism — no hit and runs, no arson attacks, no attempts at blackmail.

John Yorke, acting editor of The Archers, has said that he wants to make the series “darker and bigger”, chilling words for fans of the 61-year-old soap. No wonder the ratings have tumbled to just 4.63 million, 400,000 less than this time last year.

As any Archers addict will tell you, what keeps us tuning in are the small storylines. We relish Lynda Snell’s efforts to bring commedia dell’arte to the village hall and we love trying to decipher the Defra-approved jargon uttered by Debbie Aldridge via a dodgy webcam from Hungary.

And that’s not to say that The Archers we know and love can’t pack an emotional punch. When the Grundys were evicted from Grange Farm and Joe bludgeoned his beloved ferrets to death, I could feel a lump in my throat. Similarly, last year, Clarrie’s shame at going to work with the Norovirus and contaminating the dairy products led to her night flight from Ambridge. Where did she go? To Peterborough bus station. There was more poignancy in this detail than any sexed-up “darker and bigger” storyline could muster.

When I spoke to Kim Greengrass, the series producer, last year, she pointed out that The Archers is very popular with single people. For those who don’t have a family, the familiar chatter of voices is a form of company. In that case, it must be disturbing to seek companionship from the histrionic voices of David and Ruth as they try to cope after an horrific arson attack — a storyline now referred to disdainfully as “Farmageddon”.

Soaps have their ups and downs. John Yorke, a former EastEnders executive producer, must know this, as he was partly responsible for that show’s renaissance, introducing all manner of grand guignol storylines. But that is EastEnders.

What we Archers addicts want is a quiet life. Like Phil Archer, we want to sit back with a cup of tea and a slice of parkin, safe in the knowledge that thieves will not plunder and barns will not burn.